lamadeleine

THIS. And we all know that Lady SheRa didn't come to play, and by "play" I mean: Get a job Downsize her lifestyle If they lose the TV show, the Kodster is going to have to figure out how to keep this woman (and her children) in the manner in which they've become accustomed. It remains to be seen how Chody will financially participate in the lives of his non-Sobyn kids in terms of schooling, future events like weddings, etc...but you can best believe that he will be expected to foot all bills relating to Sobyn's kids. If that is a struggle...well, if a legal wife has to sue someone's ass for divorce to get her kids "the life they deserve"....I would not put it past her.

Get the fuck outta here with this. The only things I'm blinded by when I watch this show are boredom and confusion. Fear and terror? You give yourself way too much credit, MPK. People didn't see any dimensions in the character of Che because the character was poorly conceived and written. If this is the creative hill you're prepared to die on, MPK, how about acknowledging some responsibility for that? Oh right...gaslighting your audience into thinking that it's their fault they didn't like the character is much easier. Got it. edited for spacing

Sigh...yes. Remember the old Mer who was prickly and complicated, but also loyal, passionate, and on fire about pretty much everything? I miss her. This Mer just nods and smiles and seems perfectly reasonable, very moderate, an...zzzzzzzz.

Yes. The title character of this show has now essentially become a reoccurring guest role...at least that's how it feels..but EP has a lot of power behind the scenes and I don't think she'd sign on for more seasons if she wasn't okay with the direction her character was going. I'm inclined to believe that this is some long, drawn out exit strategy for the character and that EP is totally here for it. Unfortunately, it's pretty much like watching paint dry for me.

If I ran the room coming into season 2: Miranda/Che: I'd wrap this shit up quickly, but in a way that gives Miranda a platform to move forward as a character and doesn't necessarily pit Che as the villain. We see Miranda and Che settling into LA, but the cracks start to show immediately. Between becoming the next Roseanne and being a self-proclaimed narcissist completely uninterested in a traditional relationship, Che quickly grows tired of Miranda and what they see as Miranda's unrealistic expectations. Miranda, on the other hand, tries hard to live her best "rom-com" life, but ultimately realizes that she's made a mistake in throwing in her whole lot for what was at the end of the day, just a really intense crush. There is a good-faith effort to make it work, but at the end of the day, these two recognize that it's not working, and they have a difficult but necessary adult conversation. This results in Miranda going back to NYC to do some much needed soul-searching.

Yes- this show always seems to know how to do something story-wise with births and babies, but the writers have never been strongly invested in what happens to the main character's kids beyond that ...that being said, I thought the young actress playing Zola did a good job with what she was given this week. Other random thoughts: -Stop. Just stop with the stupid fever-dream episodes. I had no idea what the point of that whole thing was. I could have maybe understood something like this if it had happened when Maggie was first introduced on the show, but at this point, it's like "Oh...Maggie's been harboring all this anxiety about her place in the Grey family all this time?...Huh. Ok. And I care because...why?" -Nick/Mer- I wonder if it got back to the writers that there was a persistent fan theory floating around that Nick was nothing more than figment of Mer's imagination. The show seems to be now desperately trying to build a character/backstory for Nick when that groundwork should have been put in place as soon as SS was a lock to come back- thus the niece/Silver plot. I think they're trying to show that Nick has people in his life outside of Mer, that he's capable of experiencing/causing tension and conflict, and that he's not just the weirdly perfect robot boyfriend that was initially introduced to us. I'm baffled as to why we don't get to see Nick actually interacting in a meaningful way with the people in Mer's life..you know, like her kids, her family, her colleagues. -Kai/Amelia- I'm fairly neutral on this one. I do think ERF/CS have good chemistry together, so I'm willing to see where this goes. I like the character of Kai, but ERF doesn't seem to have a lot of range as an actor so...

Just gonna leave this here: https://okmagazine.com/p/paedon-brown-says-kody-unvaccinated-against-covid-sister-wives/

I don't think I'll be tuning in and I really don't have a horse in this race, so to speak, but I imagine that there is a place out there for this kind of cooking show, particularly amongst the TLC demographic (and I'm sure that TLC has done some kind of market research on this). Giving her a digital platform is probably easy for the network to do, and it's an easy way to test whether or not people would be interested in more "Just Christine" programming. My guess is that while her food probably won't be the healthiest or the most sophisticated fare out there, it will probably be simple and easy to make, inexpensive for the average household to prepare, and good for families/groups...that ticks a lot of boxes for a lot of home cooks out there.

I think they'll take the first three episodes to just replay what happened this season- lots of recap footage and lots of TH segments where the remaining four give endless variations on "I'm still angry"(Kody), "It's an adjustment but I'm happy she's happy"(Janelle), "I'm still trying to take it all in"(Meri), and Robyn fake crying and making it all about her. The next four episodes will then do the deep-dive into the endlessly fascinating world of how to subdivide Coyote Pass..more sitting on lawn chairs and having pointless conversations about that. If they're picking up in 2021, then COVID isn't over yet, so that will buy them a couple more episodes where they can recap this season's Covid arguments, show more recaps, blah, blah, blah. That will leave a couple of episodes for all thingks related to poor Robyn's youngest children who don't remember their sibling's names anymore and that older kid from the former wife who just had a baby in Utah.

I do too. I think the reasons are pretty clear- she's new and shiny at this point. They're still somewhat newly wed and she's now pregnant with their first child together. He doesn't have the baggage with Robyn yet that he does with all the other wives...and as we know, Kody is good at dividing his love, but sucks at multiplying it.

I just watched a handful of older episodes from seasons 1-3. A couple of rando observations: The cold sores. So many cold sores. I'd forgot about that. The ladies all look so much better in these early episodes- their makeup looks nice and clean, and the eyebrow situation isn't out of control like it is now. Meri's hair- although it's never been great, is so much nicer without the gazillion pounds of hair product in it. Kodyn's pregnancy with Sol announcement - Janelle's face. Oof. Dead eyes. They'd just moved into all the Vegas rennals and I imagine all she could think about when she heard about the precious new addition was the rapidly dwindling bank account and no job prospects in sight, save carrying open house signs for Mona. Season 3, Episode 4- The Four Lives of Kody Brown. This episode should be renamed "Look at the Mountain, 1.0". Christine flat-out says that she no longer feels special; Kody is favoring Robyn and he's not giving enough time and energy to her marriage (Christine). She blames Kody for the disproportionate attention, but quickly (and unconvincingly IMO) walks back any suggestion that Robyn is also to blame. In the wives TH segment, Meri basically says she wants to smack Christine sometimes because it's essentially her fault if things aren't going well in the marriage and that she just needs to work harder. Because all of the wives are there (remember when that was a thing?), we see Christine's facial expression as Meri is saying this. She looks humiliated that Meri is saying this, angry, and also deeply chastened...you can see the struggle. Christine just resolves to "be happy"...and so her long journey continues.

I agree with you- CN is doing a good job on The Gilded Age. Maybe another part of the problem is that CN started getting her two characters mixed up...I could totally see Ada gettin' the vapors for someone like Che. I'm joking...kind of. This latest CN interview, though. FFS. I'm not bringing anything new to the table here, but just adding my voice to the chorus of disapproval. She's so in the weeds with this that she can't see the bigger picture. You can blame your audience all you want for not being progressive enough, not being able to move on from SATC, etc. but the simple fact remains that the show failed in its execution of this story line. There were a dozen different ways, many of them suggested in this forum, how the show could have told the same story of Miranda's paradigm shift in a way that was both dramatically satisfying and retained the basic tenets of the character. That is not what they did and the results speak for themselves.

Well, I think this was just one of the problems with the storytelling and character development. We actually got to see very little of how these two work as a couple- what do they talk about when they're just hanging out? Do they talk? Do they just have sex? Do they share their dreams, goals, etc? Have they shared anything meaningful at all with each other about their lives? How is it that they've both professed their love for each other, but we the audience struggle to understand how that possibly could have happened?....The show is making the audience work way too hard to fill in the blanks here.

OMG. Yes. It bugs the shit out of me when I hear this assertion that fans are "too sentimental about the past", "unable to let characters change/move on/be different", blah, blah, blah. I don't consider myself any of those things. I consider myself to be someone who has CONTEXT with these characters and just expected AJLT to move forward with the same care and consideration to these characters as they did in SATC. I had no problem with Miranda "blowing up her life" on paper, but I expected/wanted it to unfold in a way that was messy, glorious, sometimes funny, sometimes infuriating and painful, and always human. What I got was a story line that was sloppily conceived and written with all the corners cut in order to make this life-change happen in a 10 episode arc. What I got was a supposedly life-altering love interest in Che, who from a writing perspective, never transcended beyond "plot device" (and I don't actually fault SR for this- I'm one of those Grey's Anatomy dinosaurs and have seen how believable, layered, and wonderful they are when given good material). So, yes, indeed- the call is coming from inside the house.

Yeah, I'd love to see how SATC would have handled that...in this show, we'd probably see Miranda thinking that being called out as the "finger-banged chick in her friend's kitchen" as the coolest, sexiest thing ever and then we'd have to watch her immediately rush on over for some "Che Time" 🤮

Just thinking about the whole Christine leaving when she did situation. The wives have said repeatedly through the series that jealousy is a part of the deal when you enter into a polygamous relationship- the managing of that jealousy (aka, stuffing it down, sublimating it, pretending it doesn't exist, etc) is part of their "job" as a sister-wife because the bigger pitcher is doing whatever needs to be done to keep family unity and harmony so they can all go their heavenly planet/s at the end of the day. There seems to be a lot of importance placed on how successfully one does or doesn't manage negative fillings, and baked into that is the idea that those fillings are each and every wife's responsibility to dil with on their own without any ril support from the other wives. It also doesn't seem required that the husband do anything to help because that's part of the wife's personal responsibility. For someone so indoctrinated into this lifestyle, I can imagine Christine spending years hating herself and thinking she was a bad person and terrible sister-wife because of these very human fillings that she couldn't quite get past. Also add to that for years, I believe Christine felt some huge responsibility to show this lifestyle off in its best light, even if all of us could see the sham that it was/is. Kody spun some tale about how this show was going to normalize polygamy and that they were going to be the beacon of light for all these "good polygamists" hiding in the shadows...so keep sweet and don't let any cracks show. As her world expanded, ironically via the show, and as it became more and more apparent that Kodster was barely keeping up his mandated ends of the bargain, I think her idealism started to shift and she started to finally see that jealousy for what it was...a sign that this lifestyle doesn't work for her anymore.

Yes. I do think there is a world where this story arc could have worked, or at least worked better, if they'd given it time to develop. Instead, they've tried to shoehorn this huge paradigm shift for a core character into one season- a season already struggling under the weight of introducing a bazillion new characters along with the departure of old characters, etc. (edited for spelling)

There was a posting on Reddit where someone had managed to capture and post a TH segment from a past episode where Christine talks about Nanny 1.0- Mindy. It was back when they did group TH segments so all the adults are present. Christine just levels Robyn by telling her how hurt she was that Robyn didn't think to come to her first when she (Robyn) felt she needed help with childcare. Robyn sputters and spews and contorts her face in all kinds of ways, failing to produce any kind of real response, and Kodster just stares at the floor, wishing a hole in the ground would open up so he could jump in. It just reminds me how different the priorities were for these women in this arrangement. It gives Christine's response to Nanny 2.0 some new perspective.

Hahaha! Yes, I noticed that too. +++++++++++1. And Ari got up and offered him a really cute hug, too. I feel like Ari actually does have a very sweet disposition, despite Robyn's best attempts to present her as a whiny, hyperactive handful and the reason she not only needs a nanny, but why she needs Kody home 24/7. Pretty sure Robyn is working overtime to turn Ari into Aurora 2.0. Yes. I actually got a kick out of Ari and would be happy to see more footage of her rolling her eyes and pretending to be asleep as her father drones on and on about family protocull and whatnot. She's spirited, funny, unfiltered...so clearly that's not gunna fly with Sobyn Robyn. But, please, for the love that is all good and holy, Kodster, let's stop referring to your five year old daughter as "social lubricant"-M'kay? Watching Kodster fawn all over Ari while his other kids just sat there was hard. Other Musings: First off, if you've been hearing "rumors" that one of your wives might want to dump your ass, for like, 12 YEARS, maybe actually talk to her about it? Oh right..it's more convenient to just hold a grudge and file it away for when you need an excuse as to why you don't want a relationship with that wife anymore...got it. But while we're on the subject, making the assumption that there really were rumors floating about...who was the source? To hear these ladies tell it, it's a huge no-no to talk to the husband about his relationships with his other wives, outside of offering very unobtrusive 'thoughts and prayers' for the health of those relationships. I guess the easy choice is Robyn, although Meri got an ear-load of confessional first hand from Christine ("look at the mountain"). It was really hard to watch Kody try to process Christine's boxing up of his shit and telling him he wasn't welcome in her bedroom. Not because I felt badly for him...because he seems more like a potential serial killer with every episode and watching him try to sort out his fillings on the matter is actually kinda creepy. I didn't understand the door situation. Robyn's hair in her TH segment (now with extra covid exposure!) actually looked kind of nice, dare I say. It looked like maybe that's her natural texture and she finally just let it be rather than blowing it out and then giving it the Nellie Olson treatment. Or maybe it's a perm...who knows? Her personality still sucks, however.

Here's a question- at some point last season, the camera crew had to bail because of Covid, which left the Browns to supposedly do all their own filming...are we to believe that that is still the case for this season's episodes, because it sure doesn't seem like it. Did they address that early on in the season and I just missed it? Other random thoughts: So, one of Kody's main reasons for not spending more time at Janelle's is because he doesn't trust that that part of the fambly is following CDC+Brown bonus points protocols, but when he comes back from the funeral that's where he quarantines for 10 days...? Okay.... I was so impressed with Gabe. Even in the midst of strong emotions, he really tried to meet his dad in the middle and find common ground, and Kody acted like a whiny little child (no offense to little children)...it was more important for Kody to be right than to work with Gabe on a solution to the fambly issues, and therein lies a huge part of the problem. If it's a scenario where Kody has to relinquish his pride and status (in his own mind) as the supreme leader of the fambly, it ain't happening.

She was wearing a Michael Kors parka (I recognized the MK emblem on the sleeve in one of the shots)- one can get them at stores like Nordstrom Rack, and while they're not super cheap, you can get them for well under $200, as opposed to the Canadian Goose parka.

I hear you. (In case I wasn't clear, my comment about getting married and having children wasn't about that life choice in general- there are plenty of people who are married with children who are happy, fulfilled, and I say yes to that). My comment was really about what Robyn's mom said after the first marriage didn't work out. To me, telling your child to "get their scent out there" suggests that the most important thing for Robyn was to find another man to marry so that she and her children could be taken care of and that it needed to happen quickly- regardless of what kind of trauma, time, and/or healing needed to happen after that first relationship fell apart. And then of course, like you said, once you find that relationship, you're expected to be unquestionably loyal to the man and your children are expected to follow suit (cue the girls calling Kody "daddy" immediately and the creepy revisionist history portrait). All of those dynamics bug me.

I totally agree. I mean, the advice Robyn's mother gave her after the first marriage fell apart was to "get her scent out there"- like she's giving advice to a dog in heat. My takeaway is that Robyn grew up in a fambly culture where being married and having children is a woman's only worth...and sweet baby Jesus help you if you don't have either or you only have one without the other. Of course the older girls in this family grew up indoctrinated to the idea that being perfect girls in their new fambly is intrinsic to their survival.

Yes- I find myself more and more confused by the storyline and more and more convinced that a lot of this Brown Fambly Covid Protocol Conflict is being amplified and doctored by TLC producers. I think they're taking the old adage "Never let a good crisis go to waste" to the bank and milking this for all it's worth. Not that I think the basic conflict is all made up- the Brown fambly unit (aka supreme leader Kody) has never been able to make concise, rational, efficient decisions that benefit the whole team, so why would that be any different during a pandemic. It's all a lil' confusing.

Honestly...Robyn sits there and exclaims how happy she is that she and Meri "can finally hang out", and how she wanted to hang out months before but she was sooooo afraid the other wives would be mad about it (cuz she's the victim and scapegoat of the fambly, dontcha know) and how Kody wouldn't step in and fix it so, oh well, it just didn't happen....UGH. I mean, Meri's got her issues but that was rough. Robyn- it's called a phone, and you pick it up and you call Meri- who is supposedly your BFF and someone you're dying to hang out with- and you at least explain the situation to her. Oh right...what am I thinking? You didn't do that because you actually didn't care about seeing Meri until NannyGate and the Super Secret Squirrel Covid Rules were brought to light. You could tell that Meri still didn't quite buy what Robyn was selling, but she clearly loves those kids and swallowing her pride is the price of admission to get to see them. Other musings: Robyn's Busting of Moves: well, there is no planet where that is called "break-dancing" but I was jolted to see such a happy, goofy, active Robyn...that Robyn actually seemed like maybe a fun person to hang out with. She's come a long way...down. Ariella looked like she maybe got a hold of some scissors and gave herself a do..she wouldn't be the first child to do that, that's for sure. It's obvious that Sol and Ariella love Meri- which is great. I really didn't need the AuroraBriella tears and histrionics...although I say that and at the same time I kind of feel bad for them. They've been raised to believe that the only way to be heard, validated, and noticed is to fall into complete hysterics. Particularly Aurora, who's reactions to things feel disproportionate and therefore disingenuous- even if she's truly feeling that verklempt over everything anyone does anywhere.